their shops and seize upon such Bibles as wanted his additions, therefore he complained of them for a contempt of the great seal. After their lordships had heard the business pro and con. at length, their lordships thought good to damn his patent in part; that is, that the translation should no longer be sold with the Bible, but only by itself."

Wither did not remain long in Holland, but the publication of his Emblems in 1634 may have been promoted by his residence in that country. The origin of the work is related in the preface:-"These Emblems, graven in copper, by Crispinus Passoeus (with a motto in Greek, Latin, or Italian, round about every figure, and with two lines or verses in one of the same languages paraphrasing those mottoes), came into my hands almost twenty years past. The verses were so mean that they were afterwards cut off from the plates; yet the workmanship being judged very good for the most part, and the rest excusable, some of my friends were so much delighted in the graver's art, and in those illustrations which, for my own pleasure, I had made upon some few of them, that they requested me to moralize the rest, which I condescended unto, and they had been brought to view many years ago, but that the copper-prints (which are now gotten) could not be procured out of Holland upon any reasonable terms." The prints, in their original state, as published by John Janson, at Arnheim, are said to have possessed considerable merit*. The illustrations, alluded to by Wither, were written by Gabriel Rollenhagius, in Latin verse, and are often incor

rect.

The Emblems are dedicated to Charles the First and his Queen. The writer's reflections could not have been very agreeable if, in after-times, he cast his eyes over this 'Epistle Dedicatory," in which he celebrates the virtues

66

* Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature, vol. 2, p. 246.

of the monarch, the wealth and tranquillity of the people, and prophesied

A chaste, a pious, and a prosperous age.

Throughout the Emblems, he shows himself a warm and steady supporter of the monarchy and the Church. In the fifteenth illustration of the second book, he ridicules the puritanical sanctity of the times, and inveighs against those who fancied that they brought sincere "oblations to God," when they "roared out imprecations" against all whom they esteemed wicked, as well as those who sought to obtain their requests,

By praying long, and repetitions vain *.

And underneath the picture of the Crown and Sceptre he wrote,

Grant, Lord, these isles for ever may be blest
With what in this our emblem is exprest.

He alludes to the increase of sectarian dissatisfaction; but it is only to pray that the goodness and patience of the Sovereign may, by the grace of God, "make up a blessed concord." Then, indeed, the poet could return thanks to heaven, that while his fathers had been obliged to worship "in private and obscured rooms," he lived in an age when the "sounds of gladness" were heard every day in "the goodly temples." And when, with something of true prophetic vision, he declared that men were already beginning to wantonize (a most happy expression) in matters of religion, and let "that loathing in" which made the manna tasteless; even then, he could entreat * And in the twenty-fifth illustration of the first book, when speaking of true devotion,

Nor is it up and down the land to seek,

To find those well-breath'd lecturers that can
Preach thrice a Sabbath, and six times a week,
Yet be as fresh as when they first began.

The reader may, perhaps, remember the eloquent South's invective against "the copious flow and cant" of the fanatics.

the Almighty to prolong his mercy, and to watch over the fruit in the vineyard, that the Light of Grace might not be displaced from "the Golden Candlestick." He was still a frequenter of the Church, and an humble follower of her ordinances. How melancholy a change was to be wrought in a few years! In 1646 he discovered that all the misery of the country had been produced by the Church, that she was the source of all the "late troubles," that her "avarice and pride" divided the island, and that from her

At first the firebrands came

That set this empire in a flame*.

He was now reduced to considerable poverty +. The Hymns and Songs of the Church, far from enriching his estate, had impoverished it considerably more than three hundred pounds; and "impartial death and wasting time," he complained, had removed those friends from whom he could have asked a favour with a certainty of obtaining it. He might well turn over, with a sad and desolate heart, the leaves of the Thankful Register, in which were recorded the names of his noble patrons. Among them death had, indeed, been busy. The Duke of Richmond ‡; the father of Henry Earl of Holland, who, as the poet gratefully remembered, had sought him out in poverty and obscurity to protect and succour him; William, the accomplished and generous Earl of Pembroke, and many more, had gradually fallen away from his side. Sorrow, if not always the mother of virtue, is frequently its nurse; and the loss of his friends probably contributed to impart

*What Peace for the Wicked.

The allusion to the fallen fortunes of his family is not without

dignity :

I never yet did murmuringly complain,

Although those moons have long been on the wane,
Which on their silver shields my elders wore,

In battles, and in triumphs heretofore.-Illust. 48, book 3.

Uncle of James Duke of Lennox.

tone?

the contemplative and melancholy, that pervades the Emblems. Many specimens might be selected, beautifully descriptive of the calm and religious sentiments of the writer; but the following extract is from the 35th illustration of the Second Book. The Emblem represents a flame upon a mountain, driven to and fro by the tempestuous and angry winds, yet continually gathering strength and brightness, in spite of every opposition.

Thus fares the man whom Virtue, beacon-like,
Hath fix'd upon the hills of eminence;
At him the tempests of mad Envy strike,
And rage against his piles of innocence.

But still the more they wrong him, and the more
They seek to keep his worth from being known
They daily make it greater than before,
And cause his fame the further to be blown.
When, therefore, no self-doting arrogance
But virtues, covered with a modest veil,
Break through obscurity, and thee advance
To place where Envy shall thy worth assail,
Discourage not thyself, but. stand the shocks
Of Wrath and Fury. Let them snarl and bite,
Pursue thee with detraction, slander, mocks,
And all the venom'd engines of despight.-
Thou art above their malice, and the blaze
Of thy celestial fire shall shine so clear,
That their besotted souls thou shalt amaze,
And make thy splendours to their shame appear.

A common incident in life, an every-day sorrow or joy, a weed by the hedge-side, a flower in the garden, furnished him with a theme for pensive meditation. His poetry is always interesting when it is inspired by Truth, and moralized by that religious temper of mind, which imparts a value to so many of his productions. These qualities of mind may be seen in

THE MARIGOLD.

When with a serious musing I behold
The grateful and obsequious marigold,

How duly every morning she displays
Her open breast, when Titan spreads his rays;
How she observes him in his daily walk,

Still bending tow'rds him her small slender stalk;
How, when he down declines, she droops and mourns,
Bedew'd, as 'twere with tears, till he returns;
And how she veils her flowers when he is gone,

As if she scorned to be looked on

By an inferior eye; or did contemn

To wait upon a meaner light than him:—
When thus I meditate, methinks the flowers
Have spirits far more generous than ours,
And give us fair examples, to despise
The servile fawnings and idolatries,
Wherewith we court these earthly things below,
Which merit not the service we bestow.

But, O my God, though grovelling I appear
Upon the ground, and have a rooting here,
Which hales me downward, yet in my desire
To that which is above me, I aspire :
And all my best affections I profess
To Him that is the Sun of Righteousness.
Oh! keep the morning of his incarnation,
The burning noontide of his bitter passion.
The night of his descending, and the height
Of his ascension-ever in my sight;
That, imitating Him in what I may,

I never follow an inferior way.

Soon after the publication of the Emblems, Wither seems to have settled himself near Farnham in Surrey, in a "cottage under the Beacon-Hill." But though he confined himself to his "rustic habitation in that part of the kingdom which is famous for the best of those meats wherewith the poet Martial invited his friends*," he did not forget "the delicates of the Muses," and on the 23rd of May, 1636, he dedicated to the celebrated Selden a translation of Nemesius' Treatise upon the Nature of Man. Wither had long loved the person, and honoured the worth, of his "noble friend," and gratefully remembered

* Pallens faba, cum rubenti lardo.